The 1st Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Panel Teleconference: The SOP for literature review was initially devised by the CO to help different WPs to address central questions and give guidelines and support for literature review and data collection. The SOP Panel Teleconference was held on 4th March 2010 as a Skype session. The event was chaired by Pierre Duez and was attended by 5 additional Panel members, namely Liz Williamson, Debbie Shaw, Monique Simmonds, Rob Verpoorte, and Qihe Xu. The attendees reviewed the past work of the Panel, discussed a number of issues including current opportunities and challenges, outstanding issues, WP central questions, review proposals from each WP for the publication of a GP-TCM special issue in Journal of Ethnopharmacology, etc. It has been agreed that, the SOP will continue to be run as a specialised group of GP-TCM to guide consortium activities. It will be brought under the supervision of the Steering Committee and Technological Advisory Committee, in addition to the CO. Members of these committees, especially WP leads should be encouraged to be more and more involved in devising the Consortium SOP and implement them in their WP and committee activities. It was proposed that, with increasing scientific activities unrolling throughout the Consortium, future CO teleconferences should be broadened into online Management and Science Meetings (e-MSM) so that discussions on management and science can be better integrated. It was also agreed that the SOP issue will become a standing issue in future e-MSMs and a special session on SOP will be arranged in the 4th MSM and the 1st Annual Meeting of GP-TCM, to be held in Henley-upon-Thames, UK. It was recommended that the CO should ask each WP to update their WP central questions and abstract proposals for the Journal of Ethnopharmacology so that they can be passed on to the Steering Committee and TAC for review. The agreed WP central questions will be included in the next version of SOP to guide the work of GP-TCM WPs.